Cinematographers

Directors and Cinematographers are unknowingly often the ones with the power to make a visual effects shot an easy breeze, or a nightmare in post. But too often, shots are done without a VFX Supervisor, often resulting in plates that are extremely hard to track, key, and roto.

Without understanding the exact needs of post production, it's hard to know what to do on the set, and Cinematographers often move on to the next show not knowing that a 5 minute time-saver on the set became a 2 week rescue operation in post.

It's therefore imperative for Cinematographers to have a solid education in visual effects, so that when the animators are tracking a shot, you'll blow their mind by having shot helper frames and survey data for them, and placed a prop to create artificial parallax for a tight shot. Don't know what this means? Watch Visual Effects For Directors to find out.

VFX Artists

Visual Effects Artists are often most familiar with the station they work, and it's actually quite rare for VFX Artists to have an overview of the entire pipeline -- and that's exactly what Visual Effects For Directors is.

Additionally, Visual Effects Artists often don't have much experience with what should happen on the set -- which, sadly, Directors and DPs also don't have -- meaning that you need to be the one with the on-set expertise, so that you can tell them exactly what they should do.

If you're toying with the idea of becoming a Visual Effects Supervisor, Visual Effects For Directors is essential viewing, because it's exactly about how all the technologies fit together, so we talk about matchmoving and compositing and shadow-casting and light-matching and rotoscoping and exposure in the same breath.

Producers

Producers have the ultimate budget-responsibility, but are also the ones who are often told the most crazy stories about how cheap and simple an effect is to make when it's actually hard -- or how hard it is when it's actually easy.

Producers need to be able to cut through the BS and know exactly what the consequences of other people's decisions are -- including decisions made by Directors, who sometimes need to be kept under control.

It is very hard to fool a Producer who has watched Visual Effects For Directors, and you'll be able to steer the production towards effects that can be made to look good on your budget.

Production Crew

Whether you're a Production Manager, Art Director, or any other crew member, you're actually around visual effects all the time.

With Visual Effects For Directors, Production Managers can cut through the clutter and know the truth about what's involved in creating an effect, and keep the production on track.

Art Directors can build sets directly with an eye for extending them digitally. And all crew members can automatically make good decisions that help shots become easy composites.

Writers

Writers often write effects into stories without knowing how easy or hard the effect will be to make. Producers are automatically nervous about any effect in a script, so you really need to make the case that you've written the script exactly so that the effects are simple and easy to make.

With Visual Effects For Directors, you'll exactly know how. Then when somebody says that it's impossibly expensive to make, you can prove that it isn't.